ZMP support areas for multi-contact locomotion

Abstract

The Zero-tilting Moment Point (ZMP) and its support polygon are the two notions
thanks to which roboticitsts solved the problem of walking on horizontal floor.
Its historic definition presents two major limitations: all contacts between
the robot and the environment need to be coplanar, and frictional effects (such
as sliding or yaw rotations) are not taken into account. We present here a
generalization of the ZMP "support area" that overcomes these two limitations.
We show how to apply it with a linear-pendulum control law to generate stable
multi-contact locomoting motions for humanoids in general environments.